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OTOH, in terms of population or industrial importance, taking out Romulus might well be comparable to taking out mainland US and seeing how well Hawaii and Alaska will fare alone. Colonies tend to be puny affairs in Star Trek...

Also, taking out Romulus might lead to the government relocating - and being attacked en route by a dozen different factions wanting to be the next government. At the end of the week, there would be sixteen new capital planets and fifty-eight separate warfleets of changing allegiances; at the end of the second week, there might be just three capital planets left, and those would be the ones with so little factual power that nobody could be bothered to destroy them. That's Romulans for you - backstabbing schemers since their very first onscreen appearance!

But are the Romulan colonies puny, or are the population and resources more evenly distributed? I don't think there's an answer in canon, but I picture it as reasonably well distributed. The Romulans were powerful enough to turn the tide in the Dominion War and too powerful for the Federation and the Klingon Empire to deliberately pick a fight with or conquer. How would they maintain a large empire without a great many powerful/resource rich planets? I don't see all of that power coming from one planet with a few puny colonies.

Also, taking out Romulus might lead to the government relocating - and being attacked en route by a dozen different factions wanting to be the next government.

Would this be much more dangerous than usual? They probably guard against assassination on a daily basis, being the paranoid people they are. And do we know that there are a dozen powerful opposing factions just waiting for an opportunity to pounce? I'd think the Romulans would pull together in the face of a crisis. They're xenophobes - their first priority would be maintaining their borders and not looking like a target to their neighbors.

At the end of the week, there would be sixteen new capital planets and fifty-eight separate warfleets of changing allegiances

If this were the Klingon Empire, sure. A hundred different clans would battle it out. But the Romulans always seemed more united than that. They had their problems, but they didn't give the impression that the empire was on the verge of collapse. Quite the opposite, actually.

But if you're starting out with the "puny colonies" viewpoint, we're not going to agree. Your argument does make sense if the colonies are small.

But are the Romulan colonies puny, or are the population and resources more evenly distributed? I don't think there's an answer in canon, but I picture it as reasonably well distributed.

The interesting thing is, we don't know whether the UFP is any better distributed as such. We know it consists of more than one homeworld, but we have only seen glimpses of two that appear to be harsh wastelands that pose serious problems even to their native (?) inhabitants - Vulcan and Andor. And we never saw a colony that amounted to anything much. The biggest on screen so far is Deneva, a well-established, at least century-old "former freight hub" that only had "almost a million" inhabitants, and could go silent for a full year before Starfleet paid any attention.

In Star Trek 11, in the Star Trek Prime timeline, Romulus was destroyed by a super nova in 2387. What do you think happened to the Romulan Empire after that event?

The Romulan Empire is so centralized (see: Nemesis, where one room full of people are killed and Shinzon effortlessly takes over) that a collapse is very much a possibility.

To say I'm looking forward to the post-Romulus novels would be an understatement. The Romulan Way told the story of the Surak/S'Task schism and the beginnings of the Romulan Empire. We may soon see it's end, too.

What effect that may have on the rest of the Typhon Pact (the novelverse's Romulan/Breen/Gorn/Tzenkethi/Kinshiya/Tholian alliance) will be intetesting, to say the least. It could have the effect Chernobyl did on the USSR.

Frontier wrote:

Face it, the supernova aspect of the plot of Trek 11 was the single greatest plot hole of all time.

That's not a dig at the film or if it was good/bad, it's just a factual rational assessment.

It's a huge gaping plot hole you could fly a Dsyon sphere
through with room to spare.

I'm not sure if a fictionalized supernova counts as a plot hole. I mean, human/alien hybrids like Spock are just as impossible, as are transporters and Genesis devices. They're just fantasy elements. A supernova exploding at multiwarp speeds and covering thousands of lightyears in a few days is part of that space opera silliness, IMO. Especially if it's caused by alien technology, as was attempted on the Bajoran sun in "By Inferno's Light"

Apparently, real-life supernovae can have catastrophic effects on worlds 3000+ light years away, buring off ozone layers with x-rays and gamma rays. How far is Romulus from Earth, Andoria, Vulcan, Bajor, Cardassia, Kronos and the rest of Trek's main worlds? They always seem just a short journey from each other. Not quite "threatening to destroy the galaxy" but certainly wiping out our corner of it.

... but we have only seen glimpses of two that appear to be harsh wastelands...

I'll concede that canon is on your side here, though I think the canon could have been better thought out. We did see a lot of hellacious colonies. You'd think that the goal of every race would be to build a comfortable, prosperous "New Earth" or "New Romulus" but we never saw one.

KingDaniel wrote:

I'm not sure if a fictionalized supernova counts as a plot hole. I mean, human/alien hybrids like Spock are just as impossible, as are transporters and Genesis devices. They're just fantasy elements.

The problem is that they didn't fictionalize it, and the viewer is left to assume it's an actual supernova. If they'd said "supernova enhanced by alien technology," that would be different. The other fictional elements listed are clearly the product of imagination. The writers needed to toss in some sort of qualifier, but they dropped the ball. I know I had a wtf moment when I heard Spock say a supernova would destroy the galaxy.

I agree that the way Trek is presented, it seems if the Romulus is destroyed, they would most likely, but not necessaritly, fall. It has to do with failiure of the writers to comprehand true size of space, it's capabilities, and growth of states like Romulans. A massive state that stretches across thousands of light years would have millions of earth like planets, and population to match. If I'm not mistaken, you would have millions of Romulus like planets, with quadrillions upon quadrillions of Romulans still alive. I don't see why these colonies shouldn't have powerful industrial capacity as well.

How do you populate a colony? Moving billions is impracticable; giving birth to billions takes hundreds of generations, or then some very severe birth control policies (say, 30 children per mother).

Also, millions of Earth-like planets? Trek has plenty of those, granted, but supposedly only because our heroes choose to visit those rather than non-Earth-like ones. In "Metamorphosis", Kirk exclaims that "we" are on a thousand planets and expanding. Whether that's us the humans or us the Feds, it's orders of magnitude below your estimate. And sort of realistic.

How do you populate a colony? Moving billions is impracticable; giving birth to billions takes hundreds of generations, or then some very severe birth control policies (say, 30 children per mother).

Also, millions of Earth-like planets? Trek has plenty of those, granted, but supposedly only because our heroes choose to visit those rather than non-Earth-like ones. In "Metamorphosis", Kirk exclaims that "we" are on a thousand planets and expanding. Whether that's us the humans or us the Feds, it's orders of magnitude below your estimate. And sort of realistic.

Timo Saloniemi

Assuming Romulans started with 10,000 colonists, what would their population be in 2000 years given modest 2% growth rate?

Assuming Romulans started with 10,000 colonists, what would their population be in 2000 years given modest 2% growth rate?

A generation being born every 30 years - in 2000 years, at 102% growth rate per generation, after 67 generations, their number would be 683400.

Bye bye romulans.

The scenarists' sense of scale isn't off only with regards to space, but sociology, as well.
Add a few centuries and every rag-tag band with a cool back-story is an empire.
Every conquered people can - and will - inevitably rise and free themselves, overthrowing their conqueror in due time (historic evidence indicating the opposite).

Star Trek Online is suppose to be a continuation of the existing timeline (running under the time travel theory that changing history creates an alternate timeline, so the original timeline still exists, you just can't return to it from the past anymore). So it exists in a universe where Romulus is destroyed. I don't have all the details (I'm not able to play a lot because of the computer I have) but Romulus is suffering political turmoil. Factions are fighting for dominance, the Klingons are moving to annex star systems (and the reason they haven't gone full force is the war with the Federation) and Starfleet is trying to prevent Klingon expansion while maintaining stability even if the Romulans object.

Pretty much, there's essentially two factions that have arisen inside the Romulan Empire in STO: the remnants of the old empire led by Empress Sela, with backing from the Tal Shiar; then there's the Reunification movement and the Remans; led by the Romulan D'Tan and the Reman Obisek. However with Sela now missing and the head of the Tal Shiar, Hakeev, dead the Romulan Senate is once again in disarray as factions within it vie for power.

This leaves the Reunification movement, along with their Reman allies, unopposed to set up a new homeworld for themselves and to seek aid from both the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

Incidentally, before his death, Hakeev was in league with the returning Iconians; who were responsible for both Sela's disappearance and the destruction of the Hobus star, which ruptured subspace.

Nero and his crew probably those people who in the face of a natural disaster (Hurricane Sandy/Katrina) know the warning but don't think to move their families away from home.

Given that Nero had his own massive ship, capable of transporting tens of thousands off of Romulas, including the families of Nero's crew (and his wife), and he didn't, is one of the biggest glaring plot holes of the last movie.

KingDaniel wrote:

The Romulan Empire is so centralized (see: Nemesis, where one room full of people are killed and Shinzon effortlessly takes over) that a collapse is very much a possibility.

Shinzon had the support of the Romulan military prior to assassinating the politicians.

Edit_XYZ wrote:

A generation being born every 30 years - in 2000 years, at 102% growth rate per generation, after 67 generations, their number would be 683400.

Going beyond modest growth.

If Romulans arrived on Romulas 2000 years ago and produced another generation on average each 50 years, that would mean that 40 generations have passed since first arrival.

And if they gradually colonized/invaded other surrounding worlds.

If we started with 10,000 people, and each couple in each generation produced an average of 3 children who in turn reproduced, the population of the Empire could be up to 110 billion people.

That about 16 planets with current Earth population, or one planet (Romulas) with Earth population, and 1,000 planets with a hundred million population.

Four children per generation (50 years) gives you 10,995,116,277,000,000 people.

And if they had five children (like my parents did) per couple, that would give them enough people after 2,000 years to populate 1.8 million planets with a current Earth population.

But are the Romulan colonies puny, or are the population and resources more evenly distributed? I don't think there's an answer in canon, but I picture it as reasonably well distributed. The Romulans were powerful enough to turn the tide in the Dominion War and too powerful for the Federation and the Klingon Empire to deliberately pick a fight with or conquer. How would they maintain a large empire without a great many powerful/resource rich planets? I don't see all of that power coming from one planet with a few puny colonies.

Also, taking out Romulus might lead to the government relocating - and being attacked en route by a dozen different factions wanting to be the next government.

Would this be much more dangerous than usual? They probably guard against assassination on a daily basis, being the paranoid people they are. And do we know that there are a dozen powerful opposing factions just waiting for an opportunity to pounce? I'd think the Romulans would pull together in the face of a crisis. They're xenophobes - their first priority would be maintaining their borders and not looking like a target to their neighbors.

At the end of the week, there would be sixteen new capital planets and fifty-eight separate warfleets of changing allegiances

If this were the Klingon Empire, sure. A hundred different clans would battle it out. But the Romulans always seemed more united than that. They had their problems, but they didn't give the impression that the empire was on the verge of collapse. Quite the opposite, actually.

But if you're starting out with the "puny colonies" viewpoint, we're not going to agree. Your argument does make sense if the colonies are small.

Surprisingly few Romulan planets have been mentioned. Many, many more Klingons plants have been seen or mentioned, Even the supposedly resource poor Cardassians have a list many times longer than the Romulans. Maybe there's something in the Romulan psyche that doesn't like colonizing. Like the Jews wandering the the desert for 40 years, once they settled somewhere they were in no mood to budge. A few slave races could do all their mining, food production, etc. with a token Romulan garrison to keep the peace. Add in the Romulan arrogance seen in STXI where they didn't believe Spock (Nah, it couldn't happen to us, we're Romulans!) and I could see them having few colnies to carry on. More than we've heard of but fewer than the other major empires. And let's not forget that everything between Romulus and the Hobus supernova is toast as well.

__________________
We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill - today! - Kirk - A Taste of Armageddon